Star Trek Set Review: Brew Long and Prosper

Over the past few weeks, Star Trek spoilers have revealed another Universes Beyond set that’s chock full of references and cameos, not to mention plenty of new and unique Magic card designs. While the sci-fi aesthetic might not be your cup of tea (Earl Grey, hot), there’s no denying that there are some cool cards and powerful creatures in this set, and today I’ll be reviewing the Star Trek cards that are the most powerful, the most interesting, or that generally stand out among the rest.

White

As a token fan who needs to find reasons to attack more often, rather than just piling up tokens, I enjoy the so-called tokenlink mechanic. Antagonist Incorporator’s ability appears innocuous at first — paying one mana for a 1/1 artifact creature isn’t especially noteworthy, after all — but a quick peek at various enters triggers that care about artifacts or tokens in white, and you’ll find plenty of value. Cheap, repeatable token creation can sometimes be deceptively difficult, so having more access to it is never a bad thing.

It hurts my heart knowing that the world has lost one of the greatest thespians of the modern age. Sir Patrick Stewart created indelible memories for so many as Captain Jean-Luc Picard, Charles Xavier, Ahab, or Prospero. May he rest in peace.

I’m happy to say that Captain Jean-Luc Picard is a great support card for one of my favorite mechanics in modern Magic. He does it all — buffs your creatures so they station more effectively, creates extra bodies to help station, or activate his final ability to tutor a Spacecraft out from your library. The Seriema can tutor out more legendary creatures to work with, Extinguisher Battleship can blow up a problematic permanent, and Shuttlecraft Galileo continues the plan to flood the board with Redshirts. The possibilities are endless.

Ah, of course. Where would a Magic set in 2026 be without the obligatory trigger doubler? Dr. Beverly Crusher accomplishes what no card has accomplished before, at least not single-handedly: she makes lifegain decks mathematically twice as annoying to play against. Do not let this card fool you — kill it on sight, every single time.

While this creature may not seem powerful at first glance, Dr. McCoy, Surly Surgeon is a fantastic protection piece for +1/+1 counter decks. If your deck has the ability to place +1/+1 counters on creatures at instant speed, Bones grants your creatures a form of soft indestructibility. He’s no Avacyn, Angel of Hope, but dammit man, he’s a doctor, not an angel!

Group Hug is an oft-maligned archetype in Commander, and about half the time I’d say it deserves to have a bad reputation on account of players doing it poorly. Peace in Our Time is a spell that is a straightforward incentive to do what the Group Hug player wants you to do, which makes it less difficult to think about. Hopefully, if Wizards aims to design more politics-y cards along these lines, we continue to get cards like this with honest intentions.

Blue

This enchantment is deceptively unique, particularly in mono-blue. Anthropological Mission is the newest member of a relatively small class of cards that draws cards for casting any type of noncreature spells, as opposed to something specific like instant and sorcery spells or artifacts. Most other mono-blue versions of this effect are more restricted, and beyond that, most versions of the unrestricted effect are in a multicolor combination, usually Jeskai. Looting after the first two spells is a very small price to pay for such a powerful effect.

Clone effects are plentiful in Commander, to the point where there are quite a few that are completely lacking in unique rider effects or upsides over other, similar spells. Dominion Saboteur, on the other hand, is unique in its ability to copy the number and variety of counters on the permanent it copies. Sure, you could just copy someone’s enormous Managorger Hydra, but wouldn’t it be way funnier to yoink the win by copying a Darksteel Reactor?

Speaking of Managorger, blue gets their own twist on the iconic Hydra. Instead of threatening life totals, though, Lieutenant Commander Data pressures your opponents by being a self-sustaining card draw engine, so long as players keep casting noncreature spells. Even without his own counter creation ability, Data works well with spells like Proft’s Eidetic Memory or Wizard Class that tie card draw and +1/+1 counters together.

There isn’t much to say about Mr. Spock, Science Officer. It’s another form of Teferi’s Ageless Insight that’s able to serve as your commander if you wish, and a powerful addition to drawing-cards-matters-style decks.

In Magic, the graveyard is often referred to as a second hand if you’re playing the right deck for it. Scotty, Miracle Worker is a creature that supports that notion. While Scotty is on board, every spell — creature or no creature — in your graveyard is castable, so long as you can bounce a creature you control. Generating cheap fodder tokens is one of blue’s specialties, fortunately, so you should have no issue getting two casts of your best spells. Hilariously, so long as it’s your main phase, you can recast counterspells as soon as they’ve resolved or been countered, affording you double the resources in counterspell wars during your turn.

Black

Blastoneuron is a unique addition to reanimator decks. At four mana, it’s a hard sell to hardcast, but with some cheaty reanimator spells, Blastoneuron can create two bodies for the price of one. It isn’t much on its own, but drain effects add up quickly, particularly when the routine ends with every single game action you take hurting your opponents.

Years ago, Cryptbreaker was the new kid on the block shaking up the Standard metagame with a versatile text box and flexible play patterns. Today, Collation Trimatrix calls back to Cryptbreaker with a similar card draw ability. Given the prevalence of Borg tokens in this set, and the existence of Karnstructs, Thopters, Servos, and various other artifact creatures and creature tokens across the rest of Magic’s card pool, there is a plethora of decks and strategies available that welcome an efficient one-drop draw engine.

At eight mana, it’s fairly unlikely you’ll see this card come out often, and it’s vastly overcosted for what it does. But damn if that isn’t a cool name for an enchantment in black.

Six-mana commanders don’t tend to do very well in the format these days, but interesting and unique abilities will drive players to make anything work. Georgiou, Terran Emperor is certainly unique; as far as I know, this is the first card in the game that actively encourages you to sit at or below 0 life. Be mindful, though, because you will die instantly if your life total is 0 or less and Georgiou leaves the battlefield for anything longer than a Momentary Blink.

Artifact creature decks are certainly eating good with the advent of the Borg in this set. Overflow Submatrix is another enabler for graveyard shenanigans in decks that care about artifact creatures, a strategy that only grows stronger over time. If you have enough cost reducers and a sac outlet, this card goes infinite with Tatterkite. Better get your specs in now, people.

Red

Brazen Bluff is a wonderful blend of flavor, power, and fun. It might not be the top of its class in any of those categories individually, but putting them together on one card in this fashion results in an incredibly entertaining spell. Opponent tries to resolve a Sea Gate Restoration with an already-thick hand? They certainly won’t want to let you counter it for just two mana, but they might regret their life choices if you slam down Curse of Fool’s Wisdom or Plagiarize when they let you cast something for free.

Recently, red has received some interesting ways to play extra lands or put multiple lands into play at once, usually with the provision that the land is sacrificed or returned to hand later. Erica Ortegas, Plucky Pilot proves that the trend continues in Star Trek, and it pairs nicely with other cards in the set like Captain Michael Burnham or Exploratory Mission, and the trove of landfall abilities from Magic’s history.

I don’t know if nine mana for a Demilich effect (thanks, Scryfall tags) with the potential to copy the spell a gazillion times is really worthwhile, but nine mana to infinitely piss off the chuds is always worth it.

While I won’t advocate for the act of throwing Roaming Throne into every single deck with a triggered ability somewhere in the command zone, I will at least advocate for Lwaxana Troi, Charming Guest. This ability may not be especially effective, but for triggered abilities that you want to use more, this creature will be a fantastic budget pickup for red-inclusive decks.

I have no idea what’s going on in that art, but I’m reading this spell’s rules text and all I see is red Rampant Growth with a couple of extra steps. There are plenty of ways to sacrifice an enchantment for a benefit, and while it won’t be consistent 100% of the time, this is a fantastic way to try and address red’s difficulties with non-ritual, temporary ramp.

Green

Extra land drop abilities are pretty much always in demand, and Captain Kathryn Janeway enhances her own static ability with a triggered one. Explore may be time-consuming to resolve, particularly if you don’t remember how it actually works, but it’s a powerful way to filter through cards on the top of your deck, especially when any lands you find will make Janeway even more effective in turn.

As if counter decks in green needed the help, Dr. Joseph M’Benga is a powerful protection piece and potent enhancer on the same card. He’s one mana cheaper than Doubling Season, and is himself a creature, triggering all sorts of extra abilities and rider benefits in green. The infinitely-evolving Rube Goldberg machine of green counter decks continues to propagate.

Genesis Device, on the other hand, is in an interesting spot regarding its power level. If these abilities were on basically any other permanent type in green, I’d say this was the most busted permanent to be printed in the past several years. Seeing as it’s an artifact, though, it’s much harder to abuse. I’ve been wracking my brain about it, and besides some funky Gruul artifact brews to use Goblin Welder or Daretti, Scrap Savant to repeatedly recur this, or some Bant blink deck that includes Brago, King Eternal, I’m having trouble thinking of anything. Let me know if you’ve found a busted way to use this spell.

I’m running out of ways to complain, folks. Jadzia Dax, Living Legacy is a frankly absurd Magic card, even if it isn’t as oppressively powerful as something like Badgermole Cub. Green continues to get strong synergy pieces that enhance and layer on top of other strong synergy pieces, stacking up a pile of nonsensical value so high I can’t even see the top of it. We’re at a point where you can throw a dart at a board full of green creatures to build your deck, and it’ll probably still be easier to pilot and more synergistic than a deck you actually tried to build.

Oh, thank god, a ramp spell that’s only reasonably powerful. Stable Wormhole is a fun permanent to use in attack-focused decks like Wulfgar of Icewind Dale or Anzrag, the Quake-Mole. Tokens also have interesting utility in green stemming from cards like For the Common Good and Esika’s Chariot that will let you ramp even more token lands.

Multicolor, Colorless, and Lands

Live Long and Prosper is a fun top-end spell for lifegain and draw-matters decks. It’s a straightforward and powerful amassing of value that can’t be countered and helps slower decks stabilize and refill after prolonged uses of interaction. That being said, to every Commander player out there in the world that has a Hope Estheim player in their pod: I’m sorry.

I’m tired, boss. Dal R’El, Augment Orphan is a one-mana-more-expensive Lotus Cobra in the command zone. Oh, and it also has a mana sink ability that lets you draw cards, in case you somehow didn’t have enough cards to make use of all that mana you’re generating with your Open the Ways and your Genesis Waves. It’s going in every Korvold, Fae-Cursed King deck that ever existed. It’s going in every Omnath, Locus of Rage deck that ever existed. I heard it’s starting up a career as a CPA so it can do your taxes for you, too. The honorable mention for yet another busted land ramp spell goes to Hit It! so that I don’t have to give it its own entry.

Phasing is a delicate mechanic to balance, especially when a new phasing card like The City on the Edge of Forever also has the words “permanents can’t phase in” printed somewhere in the rules text. It’s a delicate way to lock down the board, but if it works, this spell is one of the most effective ways to keep commanders and mana rocks locked out of the game forever.

A fancy new tool for Sneak Attack-style decks, Kira Nerys, Firebrand adds a new axis of power to those strategies. Paradoxically, Sneak Attack isn’t enhanced all that much by this creature because it already gives haste, but it’s infinitely flexible with effects that can put a creature into play while you control attacking creatures. Think Sun Titan, Warren Instigator, Champion of Rhonas, Quicksilver Amulet, and other outside-the-box effects. Maybe this is the creature that makes Aether Vial Commander-viable.

Sagas have been steadily receiving support for several years now, and new Saga commanders sometimes run out of room for interesting designs. What I like about Dathon, His Heart Open is that he doesn’t really have to helm a Saga deck. He’s a three-mana enchantress commander in colors that wouldn’t usually swing that way, and to me, getting to play established archetypes in colors that don’t normally support them is one of the most fun things to do in the format.

And with one card, Wizards put Nesting Dovehawk out of a job. I kid, but Replicator is no joke. Tokens are getting more and more unique and impactful, and the ability to create a copy of a token without restrictions only gets more valuable over time. Just in this set, we’ve seen ways to make token copies of your opponents’ creatures with spells like Mirror Universe Intrusion, let alone existing effects like Astral Dragon that can make tokens of things you shouldn’t normally be able to make tokens of. Keep your eyes on this artifact, because it can only get better.

Sickbay’s lifegain synergy isn’t exactly new, but because it’s colorless, it can go into any color combination. Cards like this are actually very important, because they allow idiots like me to build insane jank decks like Ashling, Flame Dancer lifegain. Don’t let your memes be dreams, kids.

This new cycle of monocolored modal lands is the only real substance for lands in this set. Even then, there’s not too much to talk about. If you hate basic lands, here’s another way to get down to four basics in your monocolor deck. If you like to have a million choices for utility lands, here’s another potential option (or multiple options) for filler slots. If you like Riku of Many Paths and can’t read the part of his ability that says “cast a modal spell”, here’s three more lands for your deck that will inevitably disappoint you when you reread your commander.

Wrapup

Another set, done and dusted. In terms of highlights from Star Trek, I’d say most green players should be salivating, red players should put Brazen Bluff in every single deck they own, and people who enjoy Star Trek as an IP should be reasonably pleased with the effort and detail that has gone into creating this set. Keep your eyes peeled for the Star Trek Commander precon upgrade guides, coming to EDHLAB very soon!

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